


Birdsong

by amycarey



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/F, Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-08
Updated: 2015-03-08
Packaged: 2018-03-16 23:18:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,158
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3506417
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amycarey/pseuds/amycarey
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Henry's education leads to some rather alarming pre-occupations. </p>
<p>Or</p>
<p>That one where Henry decides to become an ornithologist and Emma Swan doesn't know what that is.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Birdsong

**Author's Note:**

  * For [snarkingturtle](https://archiveofourown.org/users/snarkingturtle/gifts).



> Post-episode story that I'm just getting out before the next episode comes along and ruins it because, seriously, Snow White, can you teach anything unrelated to birds?
> 
> This was very much written from a conversation with Snarkingturtle, who has great thoughts.

She’s not particularly worried at first.

 

Before New York, Henry wanted to write fantasy novels. When Emma first turned up in Storybrooke, he wanted to be a law enforcement officer of some sort. When he was six he wanted to be a dog detective. She figures he’ll grow out of this… phase. He’ll get a whole set of teachers when he makes it to high school next year, ones who will have a more diverse range of interests.

 

“Mom,” Henry says, over Sunday morning pancakes at Granny’s. “Did you know that the kiwi is the only bird with nostrils at the end of its beak?”

 

“I didn’t know that, dear,” Regina says. Surreptitiously she googles ‘kiwi’ under the table so she can visualise the current bird Henry’s discussing. She’s been doing this for the past half hour as he recites facts about different bird species at her. “Eat, then talk, please.”

 

“Yeah,” he says, swallowing his mouthful. “They use the nostrils in their long beaks to search for grubs. They only live in New Zealand and they can’t fly.”

 

“Fascinating,” Regina says and spears a piece of melon on her fork. “How are you getting on in Language Arts?”

 

“We’re studying ‘The Raven’ at the moment,” Henry says and Regina frowns, though she supposes that at least it’s a classic. “Hey, Mom. I think I might want to be an ornithologist when I grow up.”

 

Regina sighs. “Of course, darling. You can be anything you want to be.”

 

“A what?” Emma asks her later over a glass of particularly nice pinot noir that Regina fears Emma is not sufficiently appreciative of, judging by the way she practically skulled half a glass when she entered the house. She’s now lying on Regina’s couch, dangling the glass between two fingers and Regina wishes she’d chosen furniture a little less prone to stains because she’s certain the glass will slip between Emma’s fingers at some point soon.

 

“An ornithologist,” Regina says. “They study birds, dear.”

 

“God, you’re patronising,” Emma says but she smiles and there’s no sting to her words, not anymore.

 

Regina becomes slightly more concerned when as the months pass, Henry’s obsession doesn’t fade. He researches bird facts constantly and likes to tell them to whoever will listen. He only reads literature with birds in it, which was fine when it was ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ and ‘The Rime of the Ancient Mariner’ but she’s less thrilled when he attempts ‘The Goldfinch’ by Donna Tartt. He researches colleges where he can study ornithology. “Grandma thinks it’s a good path for me,” he tells Regina who grits her teeth and smiles.

 

She’s sitting in her study, nursing an apple cider and reading, when Henry enters. He’s fidgeting, one foot twisting behind the other and the fingers of his left hand tapping against his thigh. “So,” he says and his voice is pitched a little higher than usual. “How are you?”

 

Regina looks at him. “Is there something you need to speak to me about?” she asks and takes a sip of her cider.

 

“I was thinking,” he says. “Are you, like, only attracted to people with bird names?” Regina just stares at him and he continues in a rush. “I mean, there was Robin – that’s a bird – and the book said Daniel’s surname was Starling, and now Ma.”

 

There’s far too much information to process in Henry’s statement at once so she focuses on the most egregious part of it. “Henry, I’m not attracted to Ms Swan.”

 

Henry scoffs. “Sure, Mom. Whatever.” And he slopes out, his gait so teenage-like it fills Regina with a pang of longing for her baby boy.

 

It’s the final straw when she receives his school report and finds out he’s averaging a ‘C’ in math. “The bird obsession has to stop, Henry,” she says, sitting down beside him on his bed. He has his knees pulled up to his chest and refuses to meet her eyes. “You’ll attend math tutoring and you will diversify your interests.”

 

“That’s not fair,” Henry says.

 

“A ‘C’, Henry,” Regina replies and she’s ashamed to hear the tartness in her voice, the sharp, broken glass quality unnerving her. “You’ve never had a ‘C’ before.”

 

“This is your fault, you know,” Henry says.

 

“I beg your pardon?”

 

“ _You_ cast the curse. _You_ made Grandma my teacher. _You_ sent a raven with a message for me when you decided you didn’t want to see me anymore.”

 

Deep breaths, she thinks. He’s shifting the blame. You read about this in parenting manuals. Don’t react. “You’re grounded,” she says when she feels calm enough to speak.

 

“What?” Henry squawks.

 

“For a fortnight,” she adds. “No screens, no friends. You go to school, you come home, you work on math with me or with a tutor.”

 

“You’re _evil_ ,” Henry says and buries his face in his knees.

 

“One more word and I’ll make it a month,” Regina replies sharply.

 

She knows he loves her. She knows he doesn’t mean it. She stands and manages to make it out of his room before sinking to the floor in the hallway and wrapping her arms around her own knees. She allows herself two minutes to cry before calling Emma. “Henry has been grounded,” she says stiffly. “I would ask that you support me in this.”

 

“Of course,” Emma says. “What did the kid do?”

 

“He got a ‘C’ in math,” Regina says.

 

“That’s not everything though,” Emma says. “Tell me.” And so Regina tells her about him calling her ‘evil’ and Emma’s furious, ranting about how she’ll show him evil and he should be so lucky to have such a good mother and on and on until Regina’s heart is warmed and she feels that little bit further from panicky, desperate tears.

 

And twenty minutes later, Henry shuffles into her bedroom and apologises, wrapping his arms around her neck. “I don’t think you’re evil,” he says. “I was angry. I’m sorry.” He might be crying a little bit, but she’s not going to judge him because she’s crying too.

 

She falls asleep and wakes at dawn to the sound of roosters crowing. Henry’s sitting cross-legged at the desktop computer in her study and he widens his eyes when she glares at him. “I’m doing my homework,” he says and brandishes an exercise book as proof. “We have to analyse bird calls and learn them.”

 

“And what subject is this for?” Regina asks.

 

“Drama,” he says. Later, at work, every time her phone goes off, it’s to the sound of geese honking. She receives a _lot_ of calls, not all of them from Henry.

 

She writes a letter of complaint to the school, questioning Snow White’s teaching programme, and she signs it ‘Emma Swan’ because no one will take a complaint from her seriously but they might listen to Emma.

 

Emma comes over that night for dinner and she’s giving Henry the silent treatment and so Regina is the victim of her full attention (well, half her attention because at least half of her attention is on the beef stew in front of her). “Snow’s not speaking to me,” she tells Regina. “I have no idea why. I asked her and she just yelled ‘what’s so wrong with birds, Emma?’ and stormed off in the opposite direction.”

 

Regina feels the faintest flicker of guilt twist in her stomach.

 

After dinner, when Henry is upstairs doing his homework and Regina and Emma retire to her study for a drink, a bird flies through the open window of the study and lands on Emma’s hand. It has a message tied around its leg and Emma unties it. “Fuck,” she hisses when the thread is loose and the note is in her hand.

 

“Language,” Regina says because if Emma’s saying it around her, who knows what she’s saying around Henry? “Do you kiss the pirate with that mouth?” She had intended this to sound humorous, vaguely disdainful perhaps, but it comes out bitter and she feels her face flush.

 

“No,” Emma says. “Because we broke up, like, three months ago.” It is obscene how relieved Regina feels and she has to work hard to keep a grin from overtaking her features. “The stupid bird shat in my hand.” She holds open her palm, which is full of white goop. When she rushes off to the bathroom, Regina shoos the bird out, before unfurling the message.

 

“It’s from your mother,” she says on Emma’s return. Emma has used so much of the vanilla-scented liquid soap in the guest bathroom that Regina can smell it on her. The message is written in Snow’s cramped script and reads, _your father asked me to inform you that we’re having a family meeting on Sunday to resolve our issues._

 

“What issues?” Emma asks, genuinely bewildered.

 

And the guilt finally takes over. “It’s my fault,” Regina says, twisting her hands in her lap.

 

“No,” Emma says firmly. “Not everything is your fault, Regina.”

 

“Emma…”

 

“You can’t take on all the town’s problems,” Emma says and she’s kneeling before Regina and taking her hand. Her palm is soft and warm and she strokes at the back of Regina’s hand with her thumb.

 

“No, I mean, I wrote a letter to the school board and signed it from you,” Regina says. “I was complaining about Snow’s lesson plans.”

 

Emma withdraws her hand abruptly. “Asshole,” she says.

 

“No one was going to listen to me,” Regina says. “They’d listen to the saviour.”

 

Emma stands. “Well, thanks for the cider,” she says and storms out. Before she goes she turns and says, “I thought we were having a moment.”

 

Regina stands to go after her, to ask her what on earth she meant by that final comment, and bumps into Henry in the hallway, headphones jammed defiantly into his ears and the sounds of bird calls echoing from them. “You really screwed the pooch on that one, Mom,” he says and stomps upstairs.

 

Emma will forgive her in the morning, Regina thinks and she’s not desperate or anxious about this, even if she does stay awake until three, tossing and turning and replaying the situation in her mind, and wakes at seven, groggy and unrested. She leaves with Henry – her for work and him for school – and there’s a swan in their front yard.

 

Its beady eyes glitter malevolently and it honks and in one quick moment, Regina knows exactly whose fault this is. Henry’s fascinated and before she can stop him, warn him that swans are dangerous, he leaps forward, edging towards the swan. “Aren’t you a beautiful bird?” he coos, using a voice that most normal people would use on a puppy or a baby.

 

The swan tilts its head to one side, before it opens its wings and surges forward. “Henry!” Regina calls sharply, but it’s too late. The swan attacks, beating its wings against Henry until Regina can get a clear shot and shove it away from him with her magic.

 

Henry’s face is pale and his arm is at an odd angle and the swan is readying itself for another attack. She has the presence of mind to magic up a shield and the swan beats itself futilely against the force field as she calls Emma. “Fix this, Ms Swan,” she says. “That monster broke Henry’s arm.” And she hangs up.

 

“You’ll be all right, precious boy,” she says. He’s whimpering, his face white and his teeth gritted with pain.

 

“Hospital,” he hisses and Regina magics them there in a cloud of purple smoke.

 

As she sits outside the hospital room while Whale sets his arm, she wonders idly whether this will at least curb him of his enthusiasm for birds. It is then that Emma runs in, one boot unlaced and her hair wet and wild around her face. “Where is he?”

 

“Calm down, Ms Swan,” Regina says and she’s pleased to hear that the shaking panic has disappeared from her voice so she is able to sound sufficiently cool. “He’s fine, in spite of your best efforts. He’s having his cast put on.”

 

Emma sits, slumping into the orange plastic chair beside Regina, all energy drained from her in one burst. “He’s okay.”

 

“He’s going to be just fine,” Regina says. “You, on the other hand…” And she reaches over and hits Emma with her coat. “You idiot.”

 

“I didn’t know Swans were evil,” Emma says. “I thought it would maybe crap on your porch a bit, not try and kill our son.”

 

“ _Idiot_ ,” Regina says again but her hand twitches to maybe reach out for Emma’s. They are interrupted by the nurse.

 

“You can see him now,” she says. “He’s on laughing gas so he’s a bit … cheerful.”

 

Regina makes sure she’s the first one in the room. Henry’s sitting up in the hospital bed, a wide grin on his face and a fluorescent green fibreglass cast on his left arm. “Hi, Mom!” he says. “Hey, Emma!”

 

“Darling,” Regina says and kisses his forehead. Emma does the same. She’s pale and shaking and if Regina weren’t still angry with her and if all her attention wasn’t focused on Henry she might consider a hug, just to calm her down.

 

“So,” Henry says. “I don’t want to be an ornithologist anymore.” Regina lets out a sigh of relief, which she tries to cover with a cough. And then he continues. “I was thinking I’d work for animal control. What they did catching the swan was so cool!”

 

“I beg your pardon?” Regina asks.

 

“Think about it, Mom,” he says. “You wouldn’t even have to pay for college. _And_ I can still work with birds!”

 

“Henry Mills,” Regina says, her voice deepening and building up for a tirade. “You are an intelligent young man who has had many privileges afforded to him. You will not throw your life away at the tender age of thirteen on a career that offers no advancement, a pitiful salary and will not allow you to use your considerable intelligence.”

 

“You are such a snob,” Henry says. Emma starts shaking and making a strange sobbing sound and runs out of the room. Regina assumes that the stress of the day has caught up with her and ignores it in favour of talking to her son, who has apparently gone mad.

 

“If caring for your welfare makes me a snob, so be it,” Regina says and continues with her rant. She’s about ten minutes into it when she realises that Henry’s grinning. “You’re trolling me, aren’t you?”

 

He bursts into peals of laughter. “Your face, Mom!”

 

Regina whips out her cell phone and dials. “Hello, Archie?” she says and Henry’s face falls. “Henry’s in need of some career guidance. Do you have an available session tomorrow?”

 

Emma drives them home and Henry falls asleep in the back of the bug. It takes both of them to get him inside and to bed and then Regina lets Emma out, holding the door open for her. Emma pauses on the doorstep. “You could have warned me he was joking,” Regina says.

 

“I could have,” Emma says and she’s smiling, creases forming at the corners of her mouth and eyes soft. “You would have had to have been at least 80 percent less hilarious though for me to get any words out.”

 

“I was very serious,” Regina says. “He’s got careers counselling tomorrow.”

 

Emma nods. “Might be a good idea,” she says. “Not that he needs to know what he wants to be but he should know there are more options than what small town Maine can show him.”

 

“I just don’t want him to study birds,” Regina says. “Is that so wrong?”

 

Emma laughs softly. “Not so wrong,” she says and shifts closer and Regina can feel her warm breath on her face.

 

“Come to dinner tomorrow night,” she says, and steps back, just a half step, just enough to stop her heart from pounding like it might force its way out of her chest.

 

Emma’s mouth twists, her smile now rueful, controlled. “Sounds good,” she says. “Until tomorrow, Regina.”

 

Henry sleeps soundly that night and Regina sleeps in the armchair in his bedroom, a blanket wrapped around her shoulders, and he only puts up a token protest before drifting off. As she watches the rise and fall of his chest and listens to his snores, she wonders if there is something in his earlier claim that she is only attracted to people with bird names.

 

She drops him off at Archie’s office after she picks him up from school. He’s sulky and complaining of a sore arm but Whale was very firm about the number of painkillers he could take. “If you’d not been so obsessed with birds this would never have happened,” she says.

 

“If you and Ma didn’t fight like an old married couple there wouldn’t have been a swan in our yard in the first place,” he says, sliding out of the car and she finds she doesn’t have a response for this.

 

She’s in the midst of preparing a salad when Emma arrives, Henry in tow after his appointment and she’s proud of the fact that she manages to hold out until dessert before she asks him how it went.

 

“Really good actually,” he says. “Archie showed me a whole bunch of options.”

 

“I’m glad,” Regina says. “You know you don’t have to decide right now.”

 

“And if, when you grow up, you decide you want to be in animal control we will love you and support you and make sure you’re the best animal control worker out there,” Emma adds and Regina nods even though it will be over her dead body.

 

“You can do some pretty cool stuff at universities,” Henry says, letting the crust of his pie sink into melted ice cream. “At some places you can study folklore. I thought it’d be cool to write a thesis on misunderstood villains.”

 

Regina smiles until her cheeks hurt. “Hot chocolate, darling?” she asks and Henry nods, grinning.

 

Emma follows her into the kitchen. “You know he’s playing you, right?”

 

“Obviously,” Regina says, rolling her eyes and getting the chocolate powder down from the cupboard. “He’s still got a week of his grounding to go. That hasn’t changed.”

 

Emma grins at her and Regina relishes the way her eyes sparkle when she smiles and her cheeks curve and how she makes Regina’s heart flutter. She’s leaning against the bench, hands pressed against the marble countertop and it’s so easy for Regina to reach over and brush blonde hair behind her ear, fingertips ghosting along Emma’s cheek.

 

Emma catches her hand at the wrist and pulls her forward until Regina’s flush against her. “Is this a moment?” she asks and so Regina bridges the distance and kisses her.

 

They break apart and find Henry in the doorway, observing them. He grins. “Told you, Mom,” he says. “Birds.”


End file.
